The Apocalypse? No Sweat—I’ve Got the Villain - Chapter 2

Gu Yuan’s fever came and went. Most of the time, he was barely conscious.

All I could do was keep reminding him that the apocalypse had begun and it was dangerous outside.

He would nod and let me wipe his face, only to pass out again a moment later.

I had read the novel, so I knew he was awakening his ability. One day, he would become the strongest psychic ability user alive, capable of controlling mutants.

Right now, though, he was at his weakest. He had almost no way to defend himself.

By all logic, he was the novel’s ultimate villain. I should have killed him now and smothered the threat in its cradle.

But whenever he woke in a daze and obediently followed me around, I could not bring myself to do it.

More than once, my blade touched the warm skin of his throat. Every time, I pulled it back.

Forget it. He was the first living person I had met since the apocalypse. I would keep an eye on him.

For now, getting him safely through his awakening mattered most.

His condition had been especially bad lately.

The prolonged fever had burned away much of his memory. He hardly remembered anyone.

Sometimes I went out to scavenge and returned late after being held up by mutants. Whenever I opened the door, I would find Gu Yuan curled up alone in the entryway.

He looked unbearably pitiful.

So I gathered him into my arms.

He trembled against me, his body scorching hot.

“Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t. I won’t leave you.”

Because he was all I had, too.

There was one thing I never told him: after all those days spent searching outside, I had not found another living soul.

Sometimes I lied to myself and imagined everyone had gone to a base. The bodies of my countrymen scattered across the streets kept forcing me to face the truth.

When the apocalypse truly arrived, human life became heartbreakingly fragile.

Night fell. I leaned against the balcony rail with a cigarette, beneath a bloodred moon.

The howls of mutants rose from the streets below.

The novel’s first wave of mutant evolution had begun…